Does irony count as irony
when it isn’t intentional? What about a description of the “tyranny” imposed on
the South by the North that sounds exactly like the bondage imposed by
Southerners on their slaves?

I’m reading The Civil
War Diary of a Southern Woman by Sarah Morgan, which is research for a book
about the Siege of Vicksburg. Sarah Morgan lived at Baton Rouge, not Vicksburg,
but her thoughts and experiences provide insight into how a Southern female
from that time viewed her society and the events happening around her.

Sarah’s diary abounds with intentional sarcasm, but she
doesn’t seem to see the irony in her cry against the North. Here are some
passages she wrote after Union forces occupied Baton Rouge.

June
1, 1862

A
gentleman tells me that no one is permitted to leave without a pass, and of
these, only such as are separated from their families who may have left before.
All families are prohibited to leave, and furniture, and other valuables also.
Here is an agreeable arrangement! I saw the “pass” just such as we give our
negroes, signed by a Wisconsin Colonel. Think of being obliged to ask
permission from some low ploughman, to go in and out of our own homes!

June
29, 1862

We
all feel so helpless, so powerless under the hand of our tyrant [Lincoln], the
man who swore to uphold the Constitution and the laws, who is professedly only
fighting to give us all Liberty, the birthright of every American, and who,
neverless has ground us down to a state where we would not reduce our negroes,
who tortures and sneers at us, and rules us with iron hand! Ah Liberty! what a
humbug!

I
would rather belong to England or France, than to the North! Bondage, woman
that I am, I can never stand! Even now, the northern papers distributed among
us, taunt us with our subjection, and tell us “how coolly Butler will grind
them down, paying no regard to their writhing and torture beyond tightening the
bands still more!” Ah truly! this is the bitterness of slavery, to be insulted
and reviled by cowards who are safe at home, and enjoy the protection of the
laws, while we, captive and overpowered, dare not raise our voices to throw
back the insult, and are governed by the despotism of one man, whose word is
our law!

I would like to think that I would never condone slavery or
see life the way Sarah did, even if I was raised in her time and place. But
that’s too self-righteous. None of us really knows how we would react to a situation
until we are in it.

Still, I hope I recognize the irony in my writing.

__________

The photo at the head of this page is in the public domain
because of its age.